The traditional role of the conservator has been associated with the preservation of the tangible aspect of cultural heritage. Conservation science has been mainly developing along with material science and conservators have focused their efforts on the preservation of the tangible nature of artefacts. In numerous cases this practice has led to the underestimation of the intangible content of objects of cultural heritage in terms of the conservation methodology and practice applied. The traditional conservation principle of minimal intervention is gaining new meaning, as we have come to realise that an artefact’s material and structural integrity interrelates and sometimes comes to conflict with possible evidence of significant historical and social memory content. As social memory is related to the experiences of individual members of the society, conservators must develop approaches of documentation and conservation methodologies in order to identify, document and eventually preserve the memory reflections of the epresented societies by preserving the artefact’s intangible content. It becomes apparent that in order to safeguard the artefacts’ social and historical integrity and contribute towards the perception, appreciation and understanding of the cultural heritage, the conservators have to preserve and document the artefact’s intangible content that reflects social memory.

1. Paper from the Conference “Current Issues in European Cultural Studies”, organised by the Advanced Cultural
Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS) in Norrköping 15-17 June 2011. Conference Proceedings published by
Linköping University Electronic Press: http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp_home/index.en.aspx?issue=062. © The Author.
Collecting Social Memory through
Museum Collection Conservation
Nikolaos Maniatis1, Ekaterini Malea2, Stavroula Rapti2,
Nikos Androutsopoulos², Georgios Panagiaris²
1. MuseoTechniki, Athens, Greece
2. Technological Educational Institute (T.E.I.) of Athens,
maniatis@museotechniki.gr, kmalea@teiath.gr, srapti@teiath.gr,
and.nikos@gmail.com, gpanag@teiath.gr,
The traditional role of the conservator has been associated with the preservation of
the tangible aspect of cultural heritage. Conservation science has been mainly
developing along with material science and conservators have focused their
efforts on the preservation of the tangible nature of artefacts. In numerous cases
this practice has led to the underestimation of the intangible content of objects of
cultural heritage in terms of the conservation methodology and practice applied.
The traditional conservation principle of minimal intervention is gaining new
meaning, as we have come to realise that an artefact’s material and structural
integrity interrelates and sometimes comes to conflict with possible evidence of
significant historical and social memory content. As social memory is related to
the experiences of individual members of the society, conservators must develop
approaches of documentation and conservation methodologies in order to identify,
document and eventually preserve the memory reflections of the represented
societies by preserving the artefact’s intangible content. It becomes apparent that
in order to safeguard the artefacts’ social and historical integrity and contribute
towards the perception, appreciation and understanding of the cultural heritage,
the conservators have to preserve and document the artefact’s intangible content
that reflects social memory.
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2. COLLECTING SOCIAL MEMORY THROUGH MUSEUM COLLECTION
CONSERVATION
The professional discipline of conservation has always been directly dependent on the
conceptual content of "Cultural Heritage". Term, which for decades described only material
cultural property with aesthetic (The SPAB Manifesto, 1877; The Athens Charter, 1931) and /
or historical value (The Venice Charter, 1964). As a result, conservation science has been
traditionally associated with the protection and conservation of the material substance of
cultural heritage and it has evolved along the discipline of material science.
But in recent decades, the term "Cultural Heritage" has undergone a series of alterations
and conceptual enlargements, including, at first, the concept of natural heritage (UNESCO,
1972) and more recently, the intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO, 1989; UNESCO 2003).
Result of these alterations and enlargements, is the term of cultural heritage, to refer to all
cultural evidence that fall into one of the following three interdependent and complementary
subcategories:
1. “Tangible Heritage" that designates monument, group of buildings or site as well as
movable artefacts of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or
anthropological value.
2. “Intangible Heritage” that designates oral traditions, expressions, language, performing
arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, traditional craftsmanship, and knowledge and
practices concerning nature and the universe.
3. “Natural Heritage” that designates outstanding physical, biological and geological features;
habitats of threatened plants or animal species and areas of value on scientific or aesthetic
grounds or from a conservation perspective.
Such changes, and primarily the incorporation of intangible cultural heritage, could not leave
the conservation practice and the role of conservation professionals (the interdisciplinary
group of professionals, such as conservators, archaeologists, chemists, ethnographers etc.,
who collaborate for the documentation, conservation and preservation of cultural property)
unaffected. The role of conservator has evolved from the limited “technical examination,
preservation, and conservation-restoration of cultural property” (ICOM-CC, 1984), to the
broader professional description assigned by ECCO (2002), where “The Conservator-Restorer
contributes to the perception, appreciation and understanding of cultural heritage in respect of
its environmental context and its significance and physical properties”. It is clear, ECCO
(European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers' Organisations) recognises that evidences
of material cultural heritage are (or could be) carriers of intangible content, which is related to
the natural and social environment that created them, a content useful for their comprehensive
understanding. Consequently, the conservator is gaining responsibility to contribute to the
recognition and documentation of the intangible content of material evidence and to safeguard
it for future generations equally with the material substance of the evidence, by developing
appropriate documentation and conservation methods and practices. The above proposition of
course, raises a number of questions and concerns about:
· the nature of the material evidence (martyrs) of intangible cultural content,
· the methodology that the conservator should follow towards their recognition,
· the procedures for the evaluation of their cultural value and
· the methodology to safeguard them over time.
Questions and concerns that cannot be easily answered unilaterally by the traditional view,
through material science, which leads to problematic practices of devaluation (or non-
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3. identification) of the intangible content of material culture, thus altering tangible (material)
evidence of the intangible cultural heritage. Instead, it is necessary to develop new inter/intra-
disciplinary methodologies, which will penetrate and bridge sciences and humanities.
Under this perspective, we could conceptualise and describe the intangible cultural content
of the material heritage as material evidence (martyrs) of an artefact that could irritate the
natural (biological) processes of memory reflections of the members of the society associated.
In other words, evidence of material culture is loaded with memories of the social
environment that created it and the social group that is represented; load that is carried by
particular material evidence (martyrs) and through them the collective social memory is
bequeathed from generation to generation. It becomes apparent that in order to safeguard the
artefacts’ social and historical integrity and contribute towards the perception, appreciation
and understanding of the cultural heritage, the conservators have to contribute towards the
preservation and documentation of the artefact’s intangible content that reflects social
memory in relation to the associated experiences of individual members of the society. The
following three cases are representative examples of material cultural evidence of intangible
heritage and they provide a comprehensive understanding of their nature.
Image 1: leather shoes, Florina Folklore and Tradition Network, Greece
In the first case (image 1), a pair of leather shoes are presented, from one of the collections of
the “Florina Folklore and Tradition Network”, Greece, whose material evidence of intangible
heritage was hidden in the mud that was present on them. In an attempt to preserve as much
as possible the historical integrity of the shoes, it was decided not to detach the piece of mud
that had imprints of socks. Apart from the fact that this element was part of the object’s
539

4. history, it provides useful information about the customs and the artefact technology of
costumes (Malea E and Tampaka A., 2010)
In the second case (Image 2), there is a direct conflict between tangible and intangible
content as religious (intangible) content, which is the material of the stain, interferes with the
preservation and the aesthetic result of the object. An ecclesiastical liturgical covering (from
the Kechrovouni Monastery, Tinos island, Greece) used by priests to cover the Chalice
containing the Holy Communion, was stained by the Communion, which in Orthodox
Christian Church is red wine. Conservators decided not to remove the stain as it was
considered to be “sacred”. This is a good example of the interrelation between conservation
practice and the nature of cultural evidence, taking into account the social and religious
structure that the artefact represents.
Image 2: Chalice cover cloth, Kechrovouni Monastery, Tinos island, Greece
As a third case we could refer to the artefacts that have been retrieved from a number of
Greek villages that were burned to the ground by the Nazis, during the 2nd World War. Such
artefacts have been collected and preserved by the local communities as evidence of the
traumatic experience and in memory of the burnt important community sites, like church and
schools. Material evidences of the fire is usually apparent on these artefacts' surface. They are
these evidences that preserves memory reflections of the local communities and their
historical significance could be evaluated as more important than the artefacts’ aesthetic
characteristics. Regarding conservation approach, although the preservation state of such
artefacts (by technical terms that evaluate the material condition of the artefacts) could been
considered poor, conservators could decided to preserve the material evidences of the
dramatic historic event (smoke deposits, signs of vandalism, ect.) to their original scale if they
are not causing problems to the material integrity of the artefacts (memory carriers) themselfs.
From the above, it is readily understood that conservation professionals must develop and
practice dialectical documentation methodologies that will facilitate the understanding of
cultural significance through consideration of material and non-material substance of cultural
heritage in relation, contradiction and synthesis of the natural and social environment that
represents through time.
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5. Of course, the dialectic approach introduces several problems in cases where the artefact is
a material evidence of ancient civilisations, as it requires a holistic1 understanding of the
society that created it, something that it is difficult to be achieved. On the other hand, if the
considered material culture is part of leaving heritage, like in the cases of most ethnographic
and folklore collections, conservation professionals along with the traditional systematic
scientific documentation, could contact and refer to the members of the relevant society in
order to collect and document their memory reflections and safeguard the artefacts' conceptual
characteristics towards a comprehensive understanding of artefacts' historical and aesthetic
cultural value.
In a pilot implementation of the proposed methodology, during the documentation and
conservation project of the fourteen collections that form the “Network of Folklore and
Tradition of Florina” (Greece), undertaken by the Department of Conservation of Antiquities
and Works of Art of the Technological Educational Institute (T.E.I.) of Athens (2008), the
conservation team had the opportunity to collect some interesting data (results). Due to a vast
amount of undocumented artefacts that where collected by the Network’s members and the
short time given for the implementation of the project, the conservation crew decided to invite
members of the local communities represented by the collections in order to assist the
documentation research. Participating local residences where asked to tour conservators
between the artefacts of their villages' collections and tell them what they could remember
about them. The “tours” took place in five (5) most characteristic collections and they were all
video recorded for further study and to be used in the documentation procedures of the
project. The result was more than five hours of video recording with significant information.
Collected data was related to the use of the artefacts, their typology and dating but, in a
number of cases unexpected and interesting associated information was collected through the
residences personal memories. Among the most characteristic were:
· Some recipes and traditional cooking practices.
· A historic folklore song.
· A number of traditions and festivities (some of them are not practised today).
· Traditional crafts and the local practitioners.
· And the historic events that were associated with some of the artefacts.
The question, however, on the evaluation of cultural significance remains; such an approach
has the risk of endless theoretical searches and “historisation” of everything. At this point, we
should not oversee that it is significant to preserve all forms of heritage on equal terms so as
to maintain and promote cultural diversity which is as necessary as biodiversity and is the
common heritage of humanity (UNESCO, 2001), and as cultural “evolution” is as dynamic
process for societies as dynamic is the biological evolution for biodiversity, we could suggest
that despite the preservation efforts of conservation professionals, society evaluates and
chooses what it is worth to be preserved for future generations; rejecting (forgetting) what has
no cultural significance and preserving (remembering) what has, in a deterministic evolution
process of cultural diversity.
In addition to the above, it can also be said that the traditional conservation principles,
such as minimal intervention is gaining new meaning, as we have come to realise that an
artefact’s material and structural integrity interrelates and sometimes comes in conflict with
possible evidence of significant historical and social memory content carried by the artefact.
1
The holistic understanding of a civilisation (or a social group) refers to the comprehensive understanding of
social systemic taking under consideration both the physical and spiritual nature and practices of society.
541

6. In conclusion, we have to realise that as society we have to pass on to future generations
our cultural heritage and as conservation professionals we have the responsibility to preserve
the tangible – evidence of remembering (memory) and safeguard the intangible from being
forgotten by inter/intra discipline scientific approach and collaboration beyond the
traditional material science methodologies.
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